ICYMI ‘The real FYP is what you send in group chats’
ICYMI ‘The real FYP is what you send in group chats’
Takeaways from ZCON; a business and marketing conference for Gen Z
[ZCON at Second Home Hollywood]
Quick note: I’ll be off next week. I can always tell when I need a break because it gets harder and harder to string words together in a way that make sense and everything sounds awkward. Hope you’ve also gotten a chance to unplug this summer and see you in two weeks.
⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY
This week’s headline is courtesy of Duolingo’s Zaria Parvez speaking at ZCON
YouTube is rolling out a LIVE vertical experience, plus a bunch of new Shorts tools
A Meta glitch seems like it cost Facebook Reels creators thousands of dollars
MrBeast is suing his MrBeast Burger food delivery partner for “inedible” grub
💻 ROADMAP
📲 YouTube Updates
YouTube is going all in on Shorts. Earlier this week, the company announced six new creator tools including a vertical LIVE feed!
1. Shorts LIVE: This is BIG. YouTube is now testing a mobile-first, vertical LIVE experience that lives in the Shorts feed. Once a viewer clicks into a Shorts LIVE, they’ll be placed in a scrollable feed of other live videos.This one’s in test mode and will roll out gradually over the next few months.
This opens the YouTube LIVE experience up to TikTokers or Instagrammers who might not have considered the platform before. Hello, Pinkydoll! It could also encourage a format switch for YouTubers who previously streamed in landscape mode.
2. Split-Screen Collab: Just like TikTok’s Duets, YouTube will now let creators record a Short in side-by-side format with other YouTube or Shorts videos. Collab rolls out to all creators on iOS starting today, with Android to follow.
3. Q&A sticker: Similar to Instagram Stickers, a new Q&A sticker for Shorts is coming soon. Answers to the question will appear as Comments.
4. Audio and Effect suggestions: A new feature bundles the audio and effect from a Short as a creation suggestion.
5. Shorts playlists: It’s not exactly new but YouTube recently introduced the option to save Shorts to curated playlists.
6. Landscape to vertical tools: YouTube plans to test “recomposition” tools in the next few weeks that would allow creators to adjust the layout, zoom, and crop of a video, making it easier to turn horizontal videos into Shorts.
📲 Meta Updates
Instagram is improving DM restrictions which means users won’t get unwanted images or videos from people they don’t follow. And strangers will only be able to message them once.
A display glitch in Meta's system caused some Facebook Reels creators to be notified that they would receive tens of thousands of dollars for participating in its Music Revenue Share program. Meta later sent out a notification clarifying the mistake which reduced payouts significantly.
📲 Snapchat Updates
Snapchat is rolling out a new “Lens Creator Rewards” program, which will give augmented-reality (AR) creators the chance to earn up to $7,200 a month for making the top-performing Lenses on Snapchat in the US, India, and Mexico.
📲 Twitter Updates
Twitter’s premium subscription service, now called X Blue, will let subscribers hide the blue checkmark on their account. It’s “all the features without the extra drama,” joked Christine Lu.
Elon Musk tweeted that X won’t take a cut from creators who earn less than $100,000 on the platform.
🆉 GEN Z REPORT
Thursday, I got to attend ZCON, a Gen Z marketing and business conference co-hosted by JUV Consulting and Snapchat.
What is ZCON: A two-day conference where Gen Z took center stage for panels and breakout sessions discussing brand social strategies, the creator economy, social impact, and the future of work, commerce, and community. There was also a heavy emphasis on public service with volunteer sessions planned for Day Two.
Who was there: Alongside a slew of brands looking to connect with Gen Z, speakers included creators, activists, authors and athletes such as Duolingo’s Social Media Manager Zaria Parvez, Gen Z for Change founder Aidan Kohn Murphy, Black Girl Environmentalist founder Wawa Gatheru, creator Alexa McCoy and many more.
Zoom In:
“The real For You Page is what you send to your friends in group chats” -Zaria Parvez
In a session called "How to Navigate the Landscape of an ‘Always There’ Social Media Strategy" Duolingo’s Zaria Parvez shared the app’s litmus test for success.
“If you're talking about a brand in your group chat then we made it because, let's be honest, no one really cares about advertising outside of marketers. We're 10 seconds of somebody's day so if they're talking about us… alright, we made it. This was a successful campaign.”
This echoes a shift we’ve seen of teens taking their conversations to DMs, Discord servers, Geneva groups, Snapchat group chats, iMessage and other private spaces.
It was also a sentiment shared later in the day by creator Jules Terpak, who said platforms were simply “a starting point” for ideas and connections before moving those conversation offline. “All these platforms utilize the word community a lot, but … is it really true communities online? I'm not so sure.”
But how do brands actually measure the impact of being included in group chats? I caught up with Zaria after the panel and asked her how marketers should think about the ROI of content shared off the feed.
It’s definitely more qualitative at this stage, she told me. But there are some signals she and the team look at: Duolingo’s social efforts are referenced as group chat fodder during the recruitment process — everyone from marketing to engineering candidates bring it up; it’s mentioned during conversations with friends from outside the company; and they even get feedback about social content from investors.
That may not be enough to convince executives at every workplace to allocate resources but it’s one way of thinking about the value of being included in group chats where, for all you know, your brand content is killing it.
Thoughtful Moments:
There were a lot of thoughtful conversations taking place at ZCON, these are just a few that stood out:
“Brands, don't just wait for Environmental Justice Day or Women's History Month. Start telling that story from the beginning of the year, start engaging communities and having those conversations… There needs to be a conversation on the sustainability of intersectional movements and how one movement impacts the other and we have to do all the things at once,” -Chelsea Miller, CoFounder Freedom March NYC, “How Young People Are Centering Community & Culture as the Future of Business” panel
“My hot take is Gen Z is just not as woke as we think we are. We're literally the Shein generation… But we can't buy ourselves out of the ecological crisis. So, if you're struggling to find sustainable products or products that feel ethical or in line with your values, the first thing is to buy less. We literally need to shrink these industries,” -Sage Lenier, Founder Sustainable & Just Future, “It’s Getting Hot In Here” panel
“We use the words soft and sensitive a lot when we talk about Gen Z. I use the word mindful. I feel like it's more mindfulness and people being considerate,” -Zahra Hashimee, Content Strategist, “The Internet Raised Me” panel
“Instead of striving for that dream job, we should strive for that dream life, and work is just a part of how to get there… We do want to work but nobody wants to be underpaid. No one wants to be underappreciated. And no one wants to be undervalued. I think that’s why Gen Z gets a bad rap,” -AJ Eckstein, Gen Z Career Expert, "It Seems Like No One Wants to Work These Days" panel
👀 Gen Z’s Favorite Influencers:
Over the summer, I taught several courses at UCLA Extension that required students to incorporate influencers into their social media marketing assignments. Here’s a sampling of influencers who’ve made an impact on these undergrads. Feel free to take notes!
Celebrity Influencers
Fresh Faces (names that may or may not be new to you)
Food Specific Influencers (for a pizza-related assignment)
📖 ON YOUR RADAR
MrBeast sues his food delivery partner over ‘low quality’ food -NBC News
Meanwhile, MrBeast is being accused of crossing Hollywood picket lines promoting TMNT -Dexerto
Gen Z is Pinterest’s fastest-growing cohort, according to CEO Bill Ready -CNBC
The Seattle Kraken embraced thirsty ‘Booktok’ hockey romance videos. It backfired -NBC News
Oh your brand tweet caused an international incident? -Garbage Day
Why Influencer Marketing Isn’t Just for Consumer Brands -PR News
Parenting influencers try something new: Giving their kids privacy -The Washington Post
Thanks for reading!
Just signed up for ZCON info! Love the quotes you featured here and I'm hoping to be able to attend a future event. As a Gen Z communicator, I'm a big fan of opportunities like this!
You would think that creators could see the number of times a user clicked “copy link” or “share to SMS” on the content. I feel like that would be a decent measurement.